Ed Burns to BlogTalkRadio Hosts: Make Your On-Air Time the Best 12 Days of Your Life

Tinseltown triple-threat Edward Burns—who’s got a slew of writing, directing and acting credits under his belt—now has talk radio on his mind, too.

That’s because the Saving Private Ryan star’s new flick, Nice Guy Johnny, tells the story of a talk-radio host who adores his job, but wrestles with trading it in “for a snooze-ville gig that’ll pay enough to please his fiancée.”

When host Mark Healey asks, “BlogTalkRadio hosts represent everybody—whether they want to get into the movie business or the broadcasting business, it’s all entertainment-based. If you had one little chunk of advice to give anybody that wants to get in this business, what would you say to them?” Ed says:

“Well, my old man gave me two bits of advice. One, he said, ‘Look, if you find something that you love to do, you’ll never work a day in your life. That job, regardless of what it pays you, you’ll never perceive it as work. It is just who you are and it is what you do.’

“So there was that thing. The other one I remember is after we’d made The Brothers McMullen— trying to get it into festivals, to distribution companies—I was trying to get an agent and I was just getting nothing but a stack of rejection letters back,” continues Ed.

“And, he sits me down one day, we go to the White Horse [Tavern in New York City’s Greenwich] Village for a beer, and I’m pissing and moaning about the state of things and he says, ‘Wait a second. You’ve told me that the 12 days that it took to make The Brothers McMullen were the twelve best days of your life.’

“I said. ‘Yeah.’

“He goes, ‘Then what are you complaining about? Just go do it again and get another 12 days next year.’

“And that is really something that stuck with me throughout my career.

“And that’s why on Nice Guy Johnny I was like, I need another 12 days. And that’s what we did.”